1910.] DUBOIS— JAPANESE EMBASSY OF i860. 253 



curiously out from the carriages. The Japanese artists were busily 

 sketching as they rode our streets. Extraordinary curiosity arose 

 from the closely drawn shades of one of the carriages, which 

 eventually gave rise to a rumor that the occupant was in disgrace 

 because he had " stopped watching the treaty box " — its sacred im- 

 port having been already heralded by the newspapers. The pro- 

 cession brought up at the Continental Hotel where the embassy was 

 regally entertained. The police carried the treaty chest into the 

 hotel and guarded it under lock and key. During the week's sojourn 

 in Philadelphia, crowds surrounded the hotel straining for a vision 

 of the orientals as they appeared at their windows, but, said the 

 reporters, the people " couldn't see a mite of difference between them 

 and negroes ! " 



The Japanese were not unaware of the unique reputation of the 

 Philadelphia Mint. All its early officers had been scientific men or 

 high mechanists and not politicians. Politics had but recently in- 

 vaded the management but the assayer and his assistant in a peculiar 

 sense had given the mint a world-wide reputation for specialized 

 accuracy. Their published works and the unvarying maintenance 

 of the standard fineness of the coinage, for over a quarter-century 

 of their incumbency, together with their comprehensive knowledge 

 of the whole intricate operation of minting, had been a highly im- 

 portant although a popularly unapprehended factor in the national 

 credit. For a nation, then, that had in itself the seeds of progress, 

 a rising curiosity as to western methods, a tendency to catholicity, 

 a receptivity to impressions, and an adaptive originality — as the 

 Japanese had, notwithstanding a long isolation followed by internal 

 strife — for a nation of this sort, America, and more particularly 

 Philadelphia and especially the Mint, was the place to come. 



On the morning of June 13 the envoys were received at the mint. 

 In his address of greeting the director said that an international 

 coinage was not likely to be realized, but he advised the foreigners 

 to adopt the American standard. A mutual knowledge of the cur- 

 rency of both nations would promote commerce as well as friendly 

 relations. 



Preliminary formalities being over the occasion was so extra- 



